One of the first
things you will probably notice when visiting Beijing is the abundance of large
house blocks within the city center and beyond. These places look as if
they were constructed in the 1970's and are home to the majority of Beijing
residents. Most are not built to good standard and look like drab and
dirty places from the outside.

If you ever get a chance to go
inside one of these beasts, you would find that the stairs and elevator areas
are also grubby beyond belief. This is partly due to the terrible
onslaught of dust, pollution and dry windy weather that beats down on Beijing on
a daily basis, and partly due to the fact that people don't seem to pay much
attention to the cleanliness of common, public areas. Its like they don't
notice the dust (which is another story).

When you enter the door to an
individual's apartment however, you will often find it spotless, and full to the
brim with the trappings of close family life. Beijing residents seem to
live in perfect harmony with one another in these communities. Often
you'll find all the lights out and everyone asleep by 10pm or 11pm.
The level of community respect you'll find here is unprecedented in a lot of
supposedly civilized, developed countries. Yes, these are the types of
buildings that the UK deemed uninhabitable a long time ago because of their
propensity to spawn crime and anti-social behavior. In the UK and other
countries they've all been demolished. In Beijing, people seem to be fine
with these blocks. They certainly don't have any of the problems
experienced by those other cultures.

These buildings are sure to have a
place in the New Beijing, because, with the exception of the odd suburban town
house, that's all that is being built right now. These new versions of the
same old thing are being snapped up by the average Beijing resident wishing to
trade up a little. It'll be interesting to see how long it takes for the
"development / civilization" of Beijing to render this style of community
residence uninhabitable.